GM will pay $220 million for selling drivers’ data to insurers, and Michigan gets $7.2 million, but drivers get no refunds in the deal

LANSING — General Motors will pay $220 million to settle claims from 36 state attorneys general that it sold drivers’ private driving and location data without their consent, and some of that data ended up with insurance companies that used it to set rates.

Michigan’s share is $7,205,319, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday. That works out to about 3.3% of the national total, by The Mitten Daily’s math.

The money goes to the states. The settlement does not include refunds for drivers, Nessel’s office said, though a separate nationwide class-action lawsuit seeking money for consumers is still pending.

What the states say GM did

From 2016 to 2024, GM signed up millions of drivers for its Smart Driver program, which tracked driving habits. GM pitched it as a tool to help people drive more safely and told drivers it would not share their data with insurers without express consent, according to the attorneys general.

Instead, the coalition found, GM sold the information to data brokers under contracts that said it would be used for insurance products. The brokers then sold it to insurers, who could raise or lower a driver’s premium based on it.

The data was detailed. Insurers could see how many times a person drove, when each trip started and ended, how often the driver braked or sped up hard and whether the car went over the speed limit, the attorney general’s office said.

Most people who ended up in Smart Driver were enrolled at the dealership when they bought their vehicle. In many cases, dealership employees accepted the terms on customers’ behalf without their consent, at a time when GM was paying dealers incentives to sign up as many OnStar customers as possible, according to the AG.

GM’s own systems added to the confusion. The OnStar app wrongly told more than 370,000 drivers they were not enrolled when they were, the states said. GM later quietly took those drivers out of the program without telling them about the mistake, and allegedly left their data with the brokers and insurers.

GM ended Smart Driver after The New York Times reported on the practice.

“Drivers deserve to know what information about them is being collected and how it may affect their wallets,” Nessel said.

What changes now

Under the consent decree, which takes effect Monday, Nov. 30, GM must get a driver’s affirmative, express consent before it collects or shares driving and location data, WJRT reported. The company must also limit the driving data it collects, run a broader privacy program with internal and outside assessments, and train and oversee dealers so customers are not signed up for data collection without agreeing to it.

In a statement to WJRT, GM said the agreement addresses a product it ended in 2024 and “reinforces steps we’ve taken to strengthen our privacy practices.” The company said it is committed to being clear with customers about what information is used and what choices they have.

Sources:
Michigan Department of Attorney General, “AG Nessel, Coalition Reach $220 Million Settlement with General Motors for Sharing Drivers’ Private Data,” Oct. 29, 2026 (36 AGs, $7,205,319, Smart Driver 2016-2024, brokers and insurers, dealership enrollment, 370,000 drivers, data types, no restitution, settlement terms, Nessel quote), https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2026/10/29/nessel-coalition-reach-220-million-settlement-with-gm
WJRT/abc12.com, “GM to pay Michigan $7.2M over secret driver tracking program,” Oct. 29, 2026 (consent decree effective Nov. 30, 2026; GM statement), https://www.abc12.com/news/business/gm-to-pay-michigan-7-2m-over-secret-driver-tracking-program/article_99a1000d-f670-4cd1-8676-dc55b8e403c0.html
Photo: paul (dex) bica, “GM Renaissance Center from below.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, public domain, cropped, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GM_Renaissance_Center_from_below.jpg

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Tags: Detroit · General Motors · OnStar · Consumer Protection · Attorney General · Car Insurance